LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD An Interview with Alt Går Bra by Zanna Gilbert from the Getty Research Institute

Piece produced for Perspective, the journal of the French National Institute of Art History (INHA). First published in its French translation in Gilbert, Zanna and Alt Går Bra. “Regarder en arrière pour aller de l’avant.” Perspective, no. 2 (2019): 143-162.

Introduction by Zanna Gilbert I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” poet and critic Wendell Berry points out that owning a computer will not, as some have suggested to him, make him a better writer.1 Further, he How do we negotiate our relationship to ob- calls into question the fact that, as a writer, solete technology amidst a consumer culture he should depend on stripped-mined coal to of planned obsolescence? Who decided that produce energy for his computer. Alt Går Bra’s the discarded technology was not wanted any arguments, like Berry’s, are not purely luddite longer, and do we accept that these useful, or Romantic. The ways in which a technology working machines should be committed to the can aid rather than overtake its purpose is what graveyard of history? What if we were to resus- seems to be at stake here. citate these machines for our contemporary The group also probes the problem of needs and adapt them? What stories can they original and copy, finding the problem itself to tell about capitalism, labor, and social life? be obsolete, and instead offer a vision of pres- These are but a few of the rich array ent culture as one of endless remix of human of questions and tensions addressed by the art- history. Multiples usually refer to a predeter- ist collective Alt Går Bra. By choosing to use mined edition of identical works by an artist, mimeography to make their work – specifi- one sanctioned by that same artist, a publisher, cally Gestetner machines – the group explores printer or gallery. Multiples play with ques- how such a choice affects what they create: an tions of value, authenticity and authorship that outcome that is both manual and machine were so thoroughly dismantled during this and bound. This use of outdated technology is not perverse but seeks to reveal something about 1 Wendell Berry, “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Com- our contemporary engagement with technolo- puter,” in New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, gy, printing and publishing. In his essay “Why vol. 10, no. 1, 1987, p. 112-113. Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra subsequent periods. Multiples also heralded French, the phrase is verbally clear, but its use the possibility of reaching a broader audience. is ambiguous. It might mean that everything Perhaps the charged nature of multiplicity was is fine, but also the opposite, depending on only wrested back later by those stewards and the context. Alt Går Bra is an expression from profiteers of culture that had standards to up- common language that bears an ambiguity, a hold. What of copying? Is ‘multiple’ in fact a distance, a space for the interlocutor to fill in. euphuism for its nefarious and mistrusted It is not to be taken literally, just like good art. cousin, the copy? To copy implies falsification, As you might very well know, Tout Va Bien is forgery even, or alternatively the unbecoming also the title of one of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. drudgery of the duplicator, suggesting office We are three members working collec- workers robotically producing documents. Alt tively, not in anonymity, but we work in such a Går Bra, however, recover the copy by positing way that we could not point at who does what. it as an arena not only of multiplicity but Alt Går Bra conceives authorship in a slight- of possibility. ly different manner than many other artists. By working collectively, Alt Går Bra Our work is not made by an individual but by embrace the problem of the copy in their a group. In addition, we believe that there is methodology – each member represents the something unrealistic in the very idea of au- whole of the group. At a time when branding thorship. There is so much that we owe to the oneself on social media is commonplace, the past that it feels like an overstatement for us anonymity of these multiple authors offers a to say “we created this work.” We can recreate, radical disavowal of this identity-as-brand. Alt give new contexts, but what we can claim as Går Bra’s use of obsolete print media is forged “our own creation” is only a tiny fraction. The together with contemporary techniques, such rest is to be credited to human history. This as the use of desktop publishing software. It is might be a way to start discussing the original at this meeting point of machine and meaning and the copy. that the group creates their work – not to use The very functioning of the group is the outdated machine for its aesthetic appear- somehow based on the idea of duplication. ances, but to find legitimate necessities to bring We believe that each member should acquire back what has heretofore been discarded. In- the skills and qualities of the others. We play deed, the theoretical thought embedded in with the idea of cloning each other and that their practice thoroughly dissects the ways in none of us should be irreplaceable. In a sense, which philosophers have understood technol- duplication is not only what we do with our ogy. Alt Går Bra carefully and critically consid- machines but it is also what we do among our- er the Janus-face of technology, asking when selves as individual members of the group. This and why we opted for today’s overdeveloped working method greatly enhances our individ- technologies and what we might learn by look- ual potential. ing back to look forward. – Zanna Gilbert. Can you describe some of – Zanna Gilbert. Can you tell me about the your recent projects? Alt Går Bra collective and the group’s name? How did you come to work together? – Alt Går Bra. Generally, we produce work with a sense of urgency. We produce constant- – Alt Går Bra. The name Alt Går Bra is a Nor- ly, mostly in conversation with people with dif- wegian phrase meaning tout va bien, or ev- ferent backgrounds and interests. Our projects erything goes well. In Norwegian, just like in usually depart from philosophy and history.

Perspective 2 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra

Then, theoretical and discursive elements take We just started working on another a tangible form at the studio. duplicating project, focusing on an architec- We have been working on Den Norske tural ornament: the acanthus leaf. Perhaps, Idealstaten since 2017. This project consists in we will have the opportunity to tell you more rewriting Plato’s Republic with the people of about this later. Norway. We have conducted a survey across the country, asking people about their dreams – Zanna Gilbert. And how did you come to and visions for their ideal State or society. In- work with the mimeo and Gestetner presses? spired by the results of the survey, we produce coats of arms, acrylic on 30 × 60 cm alumini- – Alt Går Bra. When we started Alt Går Bra, um shields. This project led us to reflect upon we set two premises: to acquire the ability to the ontology of certain objects whose format print our own publications and to organize a we use to produce art pieces, like civic coats of series of talks on art and theory that would arms and banners (fane in Norwegian). Un- serve as both an input and an output for our like most other objects, the essence and value theoretical research. of these objects reside in their communality. We began looking into options to run These are objects that resist private appropria- our own press in 2014-2015. One of us remem- tion. You can buy a reproduction of them, but bered their mom being a teacher and telling the you cannot buy them in the same way as you story of how she would make “photocopies” for could purchase, let’s say a painting by David or her students. This was an extremely simple way a Gucci handbag. Our serialized production to make copies, using a gelly pad and carbon of coats of arms and banners, together with paper. We started making hectographs, which our ontological questioning about them share is a technique with plenty of potential, but something with Benjamin’s reflections on au- quickly realized that it was not what we needed thenticity, tradition, and reproduction. to produce our own books. We were looking Similarly, the work we have been do- into a more efficient and sophisticated technol- ing with the falls within this kind ogy that would, at the same time, offer plenty of inquiry. We have worked with these obsolete of opportunities for manual work and be able printing machines for five years. The last two to adapt to our needs. years, we have had a base in London, where In our research, we came across a fre- we conducted research at several institutions. netic art collective founded in the mid-1960s This work culminated with an exhibition at in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. The name of Bruce Castle Museum, located in Tottenham, the collective was Communication Company where the largest mimeograph factory in the and it lasted only for one year. Reading about world had its headquarters. We are currently them, we immediately understood that we co-editing a book with Prof. Teal Triggs that needed the same setup they had, so we became will present the papers from the conference determined to find a Gestetner 366, a Gestefax, we convened at the University of Westminster and other tools and consumables, which have in February 2019, together with our own re- been obsolete for the last 30-40 years. search. This will be our second book dedicated to the mimeograph. In 2016 we published The – Zanna Gilbert. Can you tell me about the Mimeograph, A Tool for Radical Art and Polit- process of making prints and publications ical Contestation, which was the first scholarly with these machines? How does the tech- book ever devoted to the mimeograph. nique inform your practice? Are there spe- cial qualities that you try to harness, would

Perspective 3 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra you say you use these machines beyond their a means to interrogate technology and labor. intended limits and purpose? What we are trying to say here might have a correlation with the issue of antiquarians ver- – Alt Går Bra. What we can say about the sus historians and archaeologists, where we process is that it is simply fascinating. Mim- would, of course, identify ourselves with the eographs print using a silkscreen and a mas- latter two. This comparison is both a provoca- ter called stencil. Wax-coated stencils require tion and a reminder of the studies on antiquar- manually intensive work consisting in remov- ianism by Arnaldo Momigliano, whose essay ing the wax, a process similar to some forms of on Walter Benjamin as an antiquarian2, for in- engraving, using special tools including styli, stance, could lead to interesting observations wheelpens, and shading plates—for text, you on methodology. The centrality of Saussurean use a typewriter and lettering guides. Elec- synchronicity and diachronicity to Momigli- tro-stencils entail a much more automated ano’s project can act as a hint for the promi- process, performed by an ancestor of today’s nent place that history occupies in regards to scanner, known as fax or Gestefax. Once ready, our mimeograph practice, and in our project the stencil is mounted on top of the silkscreen at large. and printing is done by spinning the drums ei- Furthermore, were ther manually with the crank or automatical- never used within their intended limits and ly—if the machine is equipped with a motor. purposes. The machines are too adaptable for It should be noted that we are talking about a users not to appropriate them for their own highly efficient technology that can produce purposes and needs. This is perhaps why the one hundred prints per minute and four thou- mimeograph was at the root of so many rev- sand copies per master. Of course, we are in the olutions throughout the last century. We are world of the analog, so everything depends. now using the mimeographs to print on fabric Wax stencils are fragile, and the more elaborate and to produce large-scale installations. The masters tend to wear down rather quickly— canvas of the mimeograph is the A4 format— you cannot expect to produce more than fifty these were office machines, designed to dupli- prints with certain motives on wax stencils, so cate documents. Yet, it did not take us too long you have to be ready to replicate the engraving to figure out that the length limitation could be as many times as needed. overcome. This was in the middle of the night, Concerning your second question, so we tried out with a kitchen towel roll. There we use the mimeograph expressly so that the was, then, no limit to length, but we now need- machine informs our practice. Art, theory, ed enough space for the printed rolls, finally and technology fall close together through our resolving that by feeding them out through mimeograph practice. the windows. We also overcame the width lim- There are several special qualities we itation by folding sheets of paper larger than try to harness. It is important for us to mas- A4. Trying out different supports, we also re- ter the tools as people did in the 1940s or 50s, alized that the machines were not only good to without rejecting technologies and working print on paper but also on canvas, wood, and methods available to us today. Except for one of other materials. our books, which we decided to fully produce without a computer, our publications are de- signed with desktop publishing software. Our work and the tools we use are not some sort of 2 Arnaldo Momigliano, “Walter Benjamin,” in Essays cabinet de curiosités from the last century, but on Ancient and Modern Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994), 199.

Perspective 4 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra

– Zanna Gilbert. There’s a certain kind of and the work produced with it speaks to a con- nostalgia implicit in using antiquated media. temporary public, then art made with obsolete Somebody recently said to me that it was im- technology can be taken seriously. possible to take seriously someone making Yet, what the commentator pointed art with a typewriter in the contemporary out will perhaps always remain a challenge for sphere, because the look of the text carries so us. The mimeograph is rich in contradictions, much information: its use basically commu- which can actually make it more interesting. nicates that it is from another era. There are also a lot of new online skeuomorphic user – Zanna Gilbert. What do you think has interfaces that hark upon the look of older stimulated the rise of Riso and the rediscov- technologies, like typewriting, Xerox, and ery and flourishing of hand printing? Can it Polaroid as design. Do you share the sen- be pinpointed to a specific time? timents of this commentator, or is it more complex for you? – Alt Går Bra. Actually, Riso printing is a later automated version of mimeo printing. – Alt Går Bra. Yes, the commentator is right, Making a book by hand changes the even if we would like for him to be wrong. This whole thinking process. You think and write has been very problematic for us. It is difficult in a very different way when you know that it to claim that using the mimeograph is not a is yourself who will be doing all the printing, Romantic gesture. collating, and binding by hand. And you print, We think that the key is to understand collate, and bind in a different way when you how to use an obsolete machine incorporat- make a book with your own writing. ing new technologies available to us today. There is also a downside to this reviv- For instance, we would not type the text for a al of the handmade. During the 1970s, many 200-page book using a typewriter, when it was handmade items acquired a cheap or unfash- already typed on a computer with all the edit- ionable connotation. Frozen food and mass ing capabilities offered by these machines. This made jeans came into fashion. Now, freshly would be somehow defeating the purpose of cultivated vegetables are in, for example. The what we are trying to do. But perhaps the most problem is that organic food is only affordable important thing is to resort to the outmoded to some. So now those with means eat what they for a legitimate purpose and not the opposite— once despised. We are afraid that something to use its aesthetics to fill in for a lack of content similar might happen with books. Again you or ideas. As we said earlier, we chose the mim- have the contradictions of the mimeograph. eograph, the high-end Gestetner machines, to If you make the books yourself, then they be more precise, because they suit our needs: are not for everybody because of the modes of what we want to produce and how we want to production. produce it. The mimeograph is a middle term: a tool. Hegel beautifully describes the tool as standing “higher than labor, higher than the – Zanna Gilbert. When you make your object, and higher than enjoyment or the end books, who are you targeting? aimed at.”3 If the choice of tool feels pertinent – Alt Går Bra. Much of our project is invested in understanding the relevance of art for so- 3 G.W.F. Hegel, System of Ethical Life and First Philoso- ciety. What is the intrinsic value of art? Soc- phy of Spirit, trans. H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox (Albany: rates resorts to what he describes as „a rather S.U.N.Y. Press, 1979), 113.

Perspective 5 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra absurd figure“ who „attaches himself to the There is a whole set of Romantic values city as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large in Morris that we distrust, including his some- and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size how unidimensional approach to technology and needs to be aroused by stinging.“ and progress. For us, it is exciting to imagine The paradox is that when it comes to a rapprochement between fine arts and crafts, our publications, we rarely think about our namely through ornamental architecture. targeted audience. Maybe because it is already so thrilling to get these books made that we – Zanna Gilbert. Your mention of sleep in do not allocate the time to think about whom a paper written to open the conference you we are trying to address. We hope that pretty organized at the University of Westminster much anyone who comes across our books can reminded me of 24/7 by Jonathan Crary4 in understand what we are trying to do, putting which he explores sleep as a last frontier of theory and manual labor at the same level. capitalism. What do you think the relation- Funnily enough, people who seem to appreci- ship of printed matter and obsolete printing ate our publishing practice more integrally are technologies is to this question of new tech- rather those outside the art world. In our ex- nologies capturing of our time and attention? perience, there seems to be a tendency toward exclusion: you either have the manual skills to – Alt Går Bra. This is a complex question make a beautiful object or you know your Ar- and this is why we convened a conference at istotle— you cannot combine both. This con- the University of Westminster in February tradiction is reflected often in contemporary 2019.5 Our answer can be found in that paper art but also in our larger culture which has a we wrote to open the conference.6 The mim- tendency to equate ugliness with truth. We eograph is a remarkable site to explore the would love to have a longer discussion about increasingly pressing issue of technology. We the role of beauty. But this is exactly the most believe that there have been two major splits in interesting place for us to inhabit, where con- history, one happened when art and technolo- tradictions become apparent. gy broke apart. The Ancient Greek word technē means art. The second split was when art broke – Zanna Gilbert. Were the positions of Wil- away from architecture. This means when or- liam Morris and the Arts and Crafts move- namentation left the building and architecture ment in general important in developing remained alone with design. It is interesting to your own approach?

4 Jonathan Crary, 24 heures sur 24 et 7 jours sur 7 : le cap- – Alt Går Bra. Dialectically important. Art is a italisme à l’assaut du sommeil, Grégoire Chamayou (trad. privileged site today to experience the tensions fra.), La Découverte (Zones), 2014 [éd. orig. : 24/7: Late between labor, technology, and alienation. Our Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, New York, Verso, 2013]. work looks into the savoir faire of the Arts and 5 International conference convened by Alt Går Bra, Crafts movement and we are interested in pre- “The Art of the Mimeograph”, London, University of serving certain traditions involving manual Westminster, 7th-8th February 2019, see the videos on- work, including the Norwegian tradition of line: https://bit.ly/2ktyoaR. making faner (banners) or hand-etching sten- 6 See Alt Går Bra, “The Mimeograph, Technology, and cils, as we have already emphasized. We enjoy Labor”, presented at “The Art of the Mimeograph”, a conference at the University of Westminster (see note 2) being in sites of incompatibilities such as that [online: http://altgarbra.org/uploads/mimeographTech- of bringing together manual work and theory. nology.pdf]; first published in Alt Går Bra and Magnus Michelsen (eds.), Tout Va Bien, Bergen, Alt Går Bra, 2018.

Perspective 6 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra look at the old and the new Palais de Justice in We, however, do not think of our work Paris. as being openly political. By being openly po- We might be more but also less con- litical, you can actually be less political some- crete than Crary. We understand sleep as the times, and art that claims to be apolitical can site of dreams. There is a beautiful and not too in reality be very political. We do not see why well known film by Werner Herzog,Where the we would not take someone like Jeff Koons as a Green Ants Dream (1984), which shows the na- seriously political artist. The fact that his work tive Australians featured in the movie needing has a high value in the art market makes him to conceive their children in their sleep and only more political. dreams, so that they can be born. In the paper It is difficult for us to think about you mention, we discuss sleep, dreams, tech- cause-effect when it comes to art. We hope that nology, labor, and the mimeograph. We depart our work will prompt people to think and to from the twin brothers Hypnos and Thanatos, feel. This all depends on becoming aware of the Greek divinities of Sleep and Death respective- agency that each one of us has. If asking ques- ly. While Thanatos was childless, Hypnos was tions is to be openly political, then this is what a prolific father of one thousand children: the our work is. Dreams. We also discuss the ambivalent posi- We will be presenting our next proj- tion of Marx concerning technology, the fond- ect in the very interesting context of Barents ness of William Morris for manual labor, and Spektakel, an amazing festival taking place in Heidegger, who, in “The Question Concerning Kirkenes, on the border between Norway and Technology,”7 states that the worst possible way Russia. Our project, entitled The Russians Did to approach technology is to perceive it as neu- It, attempts to ask a question relating to Nor- tral, as this makes us particularly blind to it. We way‘s complicated relationship with its neigh- also discuss Heidegger’s alētheia and link this bour Russia. This project centers on a historical back to Hypnos, the Dreams, and the impor- figure, a woman called Ellisif Wessel, who lived tance of memory. Unlike Heidegger, who un- in Kirkenes in the turn of the 19th and the derstands alētheia as disclosure, we highlight 20th century. She made Kirkenes into a hub for the fact that the Ancient Greek word for truth Communists during the time before the Soviet literally means not to forget (a being the priva- Revolution, She wrote, translated, and smug- tive element and lēthē meaning forgetfulness). gled political literature in fish cans. We trace Could we say, then, that truth for the Greeks a line starting with Wessel, passing through was memory? As we know, the Greek divin- the partisans and the Soviet Army liberation of ity of memory was the mother of the Muses, Norway from Nazi occupation, that ends with Mnemosyne. So, all these connections enable today’s border tensions between Norway and us to speak of the importance of memory and Russia. This all sounds very politically load- history, together with the relationship between ed, but we do not want to persuade anyone of art and technology. There would be many more anything. We believe that it is important to ask things to develop about the paths of thought questions, in this case, including why Norway we try to open up in this paper. has been so reticent to admit that liberation.

– Zanna Gilbert. The members of your col- 7 Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Tech- lective hail from different cities. How does nology,” in The Question Concerning Technology and Oth- er Essays, William Lovitt (Introduction, Eng. Transl.), this internationalism impact upon your New York / London, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977 [orig- work together? inal ed.: “Die Frage nach der Technik”, in Vortrage und Aufsatze, Pfullingen, Günther Neske, 1954], 4.

Perspective 7 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra

– Alt Går Bra. We don’t think too much about these machines work. There is a sort of con- that. But it certainly must be playing a role. tinuum of the technologization of printing Since our projects usually deal with history and machines where they become indecipher- with people, it is easier to work in the coun- able to the average user, mostly with the tries we are from. The connection is stronger introduction of the , and later and there is usually a deeper understanding computerized technology. What does using and accountability when you belong to a place. a hand-printing, but a mechanized method We are interested in how cosmopolitanism is signify for you in terms of technology and related to Romanticism. And how could cos- labor? Is there a specificity to the mimeo in mopolitanism have been conceived at the very that respect? heart of Classical Athens, when Socrates was still alive. Our project on the acanthus touch- – Alt Går Bra. This question summarizes, and es upon this issue. Perhaps one of the most in a way answers, much of the research we have cosmopolitan and duplicated elements in art, been doing for the last five years. the acanthus leaf is ubiquitous in ornamental There is definitely a specificity to the architecture. The Greeks went from the Egyp- mimeo. In Minima Moralia (1951), Theodor tian palmette and lotus to the acanthus, but W. Adorno conferred the status of a super- the properly Greek element entered the system hero to the mimeograph: “If the invention of only in the Hellenistic period. Isn’t it interest- the printing press inaugurated the bourgeois ing? And isn’t it amazing that we are today sur- era, the time is at hand for its repeal by the rounded by these inconspicuous leaves that we mimeograph, the only fitting, the unobtrusive hardly notice but that interpellate us every day [unauffällige] means of dissemination.”8 In from the heights of ceilings, columns, and cor- the same context, he spoke of “barbaric ascet- nices? Early next year, we will be doing a two- icism” (barbarische Askese) as a means of resis- month residency in Rome to develop this proj- tance against both mass culture and progress ect about the acanthus. We believe that tracing in technical means in order to restore an un- the history of this leaf can lead us to a deeper barbaric condition. Consistent with this po- understanding of important political issues of sition, the book we now know as Dialectic of today, which means a deeper understanding Enlightenment, written with Max Horkheimer of Romanticism and Classicism, and of course (Amsterdam, 1947), was first circulated in a of Cynicism and its blend with Stoicism. And mimeographed version for two years with the then there is the anecdote that so many artists title Philosophical Fragments . throughout history felt they needed to depict: It is perhaps not a coincidence that the the meeting of Diogenes of Sinope (or Dio- mimeograph fell into oblivion so quickly after genes the Cynic) with Alexander, including the having enabled the work of so many activists, very cynical portrait by Edwin Landseer. The writers, poets, and visual artists throughout acanthus is a privileged locus of contention the last century. In 2016, we published what that, in our view, has been overlooked. So, our to our knowledge is the first book of scholar- project aims to make the acanthus more visi- ly research dedicated to the mimeograph. Last ble. year, we had the first exhibition ever dedicated to the mimeograph, showing over 200 publi- – Zanna Gilbert. The complexity of the ma- chines we now use to publish and share in- formation means the majority of users don’t 8 Theodor W. Adorno,Minima Moralia: Reflexionen understand, don’t want to understand, how aus dem beschädigten Leben (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1951), 81-2.

Perspective 8 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra cations including works by Fluxus, the Situa- more mechanized, are you using riso too? tionists International, the first fanzines from And what particularities do you find in that the 1930s, and activists such as the Spies for machine if so? Peace. The conference we convened this year at the University of Westminster is the first of – Alt Går Bra. As mimeograph users, Riso- its kind devoted to our obsolete machine. The graphs seem buttonized rather than mecha- mimeograph is a fascinating subject and it is nized to us. difficult for us to explain how so few people be- Mimeo supplies are of course out of fore us took an interest in it. production. We discovered that the Riso can This year, we produced an installation produce stencils with similar results to mimeo at the V&A that addresses precisely the issues electro-stencils. We then mount the Riso-pro- you bring up through these questions. With duced stencils on a mimeo Gestetner header the title Le Grand Mètre (After Céjar), we con- and print using the mimeo. We have never ceived this installation as a sort of remake in printed on a Riso. reverse of the copy art piece Le Grand Mètre that the French artist Céjar (Christian Rigal) – Zanna Gilbert. You have said that the mim- showed at the Louvre Museum in the 1980s. eo lies between tool and machine. Is there a Céjar produced his piece with an early Xerox forward facing and backward facing aspect machine, which was the technology that came to your engagement of mimeo - as a moment to replace the mimeograph. Our installation in time that relates both to the manual past was intended to be a quo vadis–where has Xe- but also to the mechanized, motorized, tech- rox and the digital era taken us? nologized present? We have some points of contention with Benjamin’s famous article on repro- – Alt Går Bra. Bureaucratic efficiency is im- duction. Yet, he put the point we are trying portant for us. If we wanted to go back to the to make here in an extraordinarily clear and basics, we could make hectographs, the simple beautiful fashion: “For the majority of city duplicating technique that we mentioned be- dwellers, throughout the workday in offices fore. Mimeographs are a perfect means for us and factories, have to relinquish their human- to ask the question about technology. ity in the face of an apparatus. In the evening Your question says it all. The mimeo is these same masses fill the cinemas, to witness a metaphor for this moment between the past the film actor taking revenge on their behalf and the future that can help us today to ask not only by asserting his humanity (or what where we are going and why. appears to them as such) against the apparatus, It is due to these reasons that duplica- but by placing that apparatus in the service of tors are not an outmoded technology for us. his triumph.”9 Going back to Adorno and Minima Moralia, he discusses the obsolete and outmoded as a sort – Zanna Gilbert. The risograph is much of fork in the road, based on a set of choices as opposed to technical evolution. The turn to digitalization was total, and led to a thorough 9 “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological attempt by digital companies that entered into Reproducibility: Second Version”, trans. Edmund Jeph- the market in the late 70s to literally destroy cott and Harry Zohn, in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on the manual past. This is reflected in numerous Media, eds. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty and stories we have heard of mimeographs, being Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge/London: The Belknap thrown away fresh off the production line. A Press, 2008), 31.

Perspective 9 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra few of the machines we own were those sal- lete technology if nobody else cares about it? vaged from the Gestetner factory following its Maybe yes, maybe not. We do not know the an- (failed) digital transformation. swer. For now, we have the remaining stencils These issues are also reflected in the that are still in circulation so that we are able to extent to which duplicators are excluded from ask this and other questions. our collective memory. In 2015, for instance, In any case, these are questions with the Pompidou Center had a major exhibition remarkable repercussions in politics and of key on the Beat Generation with a large room at importance in regards to the question of tech- the entrance displaying the various machines nology discussed throughout this interview. used by the Beat poets. As in Tacitus’s famous Do we deserve the technology we have today at oxymoron about the conspicuity of an absence, our disposal? We mean, have we, users, worked the mimeograph was conspicuous by its ab- for it or was it just parachuted onto us? sence at the exhibition. It is interesting to retrace these histor- – Zanna Gilbert. Was the example of Beau ical steps. Why did we decide to take the path Geste Press important in the elaboration of to digitalization? To what degree are we able to your reflection? And if so, in which sense? negotiate with machines today and what are the effects of rapid dematerialization? – Alt Går Bra. We love the work of Beau Geste Press, but we think that they were trying to – Zanna Gilbert. Given the difficulty in find- do something totally different from us. We ing the supplies needed to operate the mim- want to think that it was only a few decades eograph, how do you plan to continue this ago, but imagine how many things took place practice in the future? How do ecological from May 68 until today! We live in a different considerations fit into this reflection? world. And this is why it is important not to attach ourselves to the contingent, including, – Alt Går Bra. Perhaps, this is the most fun of course, the mimeograph and the shortage of aspect of all our mimeograph practice, when supplies, which sooner or later should come up chance will decide. One of our publications to a cul de sac. bears the phrase Alea iacta est in the front cov- er. This is an interesting phrase. It is saying, – Zanna Gilbert. How do you see mimeo “There is nothing else you can do; it is already printing in the future? Can it have a role be- too late!” But it also can be saying, “well, there yond specialized artistic projects. If it is lost is so much you can do,” conveying almost like as a technology, what would be lost? a feeling of relief. Even if agency is so central to our project, we understand that so many things – Alt Går Bra. Our answer to the last question in life are aleatory. This is why Alain Badiou’s is: the capacity to think. Mimeographs are from concept of the event is interesting. And this is that moment when we as humanity made an why we do not believe that art should try to important decision. In an article published in take the place of politics, as Jacques Rancière Billedkunst this year,10 we speak about measur- has very persuasively argued. ing and the meaning of metron for the Greeks. But to go back to your question, if we made an incredible amount of effort, we could 10 First published in Norwegian in Alt Går Bra, “Le probably restart the production of stencils. We Grand Mètre - målebåndet som læremester,” Billed- believe that any leadership should be able to kunst, no. 3 (2019): 105-9. Also published in Norwegian, wait to be caught up by its constituency. Would French, and English in Alt Går Bra, “Le Grand Mètre,” it make sense to attach ourselves to this obso- Trykksak, no. 3 (2019): unnumbered pages. Available online http://altgarbra.org/uploads/metronEnglish.pdf

Perspective 10 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra

We recall the myth of Erysichthon. Punished the local production of pamphlets quickly with insatiable hunger, Erysichthon ends up and cheaply in repressed political situa- eating everything there is to eat. The only thing tions. left is his own flesh, which he devours, result- I was acutely aware that the Gestetner ing in his demise. technology was about to be completely It‘d be definitely possible to restart overwhelmed by new technology. I par- production of mimeograph machines. In Chi- ticularly recall David Gestetner asked me na they were still making them until very re- to make a display for the canteen show- cently. We have discussed this with our friend ing how many parts were in a Gestetner Jonathan Gestetner, the last heir of the Gestet- machine versus a contemporary Canon ner family, who was running the factory him- photocopier. (I have no idea what point self with his brother David until they closed he was hoping to make, but I think he was it down in the 1980s. The Gestetners did not proud of the engineering prowess in Tot- believe in the digital. They stayed in the me- tenham). chanical era and bought them up. The display was cancelled when there We would like to close with a testimonial wasn’t enough space to show all the by Michael Laird, one of the former Gestetner Gestetner machine‘s parts (most made in factory workers we interviewed during our the factory itself), while the Canon ma- field work in London: chine only filled two boards. The message My first job was at Gestetner in 1980 until of the future was stark and profound. Zips 1982. It was a short period but very mem- and buttons. orable. I recall the factory was amazing I was the ‘company writer’ and wrote the though—metal billets were delivered at brochures, training films, speeches, press one end and completed machines left at releases, etc. The company‘s centenary the other. The foundry press was like a was during this time. Although I was ex- steel mill. It was a complete community. tremely junior, I spent a lot of time in the Everything was in-house, onsite. My own company of senior figures because of my area was next to the art studio where a role. I used to go and take my briefs from dozen graphic artists worked full time. In those in the ‘silver mile’ (senior manage- addition to all the artwork, the studio also ment) and the ‘golden mile’ (board of di- did birthday and marriage posters and rectors). Between each was a huge area of banners, and caricature leaving cards for secretarial support. staff. The social club had at least two full Much of my work was involved in the size snooker tables. company museum, which included a lot of the Raymond Loewy design work on ‘streamlining’, as well as the original sten- cil process technology which was revolu- tionary in its day. Gestetner modernised its process repeatedly - but it was always rooted in mechanics and wet ink print media. In many places, particularly those without power, the Gestetner machine was a real revolutionary force, enabling

Perspective 11